God

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Johannes Kahrs Untitled (god) (2015)
‘Untitled (god) is the ambiguous title of Kahrs’ portrait of Bill Cosby. Since 2000, the world famous star of The Cosby Show has been the subject of sexual abuse allegations. Kahrs is fascinated by this lawsuit because of the change in the way Cosby is perceived; as the first African-American person with his own television show, he was regarded by many as a role model, while the recent allegations expose him as a monster.’

 

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The Kid “DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?” (2013)
Sculpture in platinum silicone, fiberglass, stainless steel, human hair, oil paint, various materials

 

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Niko Hendrickx Atlas (2019)
‘An Ionic pillar supports a high space. The pillar slowly rotates on its base, transforming its long, straight lines into spirals.’

Watch it twist

 

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God Untitled (2016)
‘Born in France in 1974, God displayed unusual technical facility as an artist even in boyhood. After formally studying art, he became disillusioned with the prevailing schools. Concluding that, Contemporary art as a means of artistic expression – generally avoided the narrative content that he found so compelling in the day to day life of a small french town . In the late 90’s, God without any English language, decided to learn from the world and moved to London where he lived for one year, then moved to New York and to Los Angeles where he lived for 8 years. There, he found the paradoxical nature of these cities (vast wealth and achievement juxtaposed against hopelessness and poverty) to be the prevailing themes in his art. He hopes to add to the eternal amalgam , what he feels is the ongoing dialogue that art strived to shed light on, between artifice and reality, despair and hope.’

 

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Subodh Gupta Hungry God (2005)
‘Hungry God is made up of a vast number of stainless-steel kitchen utensils stacked in a mound, at an awe-inspiring scale, as a quasi-religious offering.’

 

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Trent Parke The Camera is God (2013)
‘The project, The Camera is God, saw Trent Parke shooting on an Adelaide pedestrian crossing, at the same time of day, every day, for nearly a year. Capturing pedestrians waiting for the lights to change, bustling and jostling, yawning, fighting, shouting. Parke used a shutter release firing constantly at a rapid rate, removing control of the images made from his hands, and in so doing mimicking the omniscience of CCTV cameras around the world: “I didn’t try to control who my camera captured, but let life and chance decide. There are security cameras all over cities now, doing the same thing, watching daily life happen in front of them.”’

 

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Slayer God Hates Us All (Disciple) (2001)
‘Drones since the dawn of time / Compelled to live your sheltered lives / Not once has anyone ever seen / Such a rise of pure hypocrisy / I’ll instigate, I’ll free your mind / I’ll show you what I’ve known all this time / God hates us all / God hates us all / You know it’s true God hates this place / You know it’s true he hates this race / Homicide, suicide / Hate heals, you should try it sometime / Strive for peace with acts of war / The beauty of death we all adore / I have no faith distracting me / I know why your prayers will never be answered / God hates us all / God hates us all / God hates us all / God hates us all / Yeah, he fuckin’ hates me’

 

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Robert Alexander Untitled (Art is Love is God) (1955)
‘Robert Alexander and Wallace Berman first met in 1945, and became fast friends and artistic collaborators—“soul mates,” in Alexander’s words. This collapsible, rough-hewn box pays homage to Wallace Berman through both the photograph and the inclusion of Berman’s constant artistic credo “Art is Love is God.”’

 

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Sebastian Errazuriz Jesus Christ Popsicles (2012)
‘Brooklyn-based designer Sebastian Errazuriz created 100 “Christian Popsicles” made from the “frozen holy wine transformed into the blood of Christ.” As for the blood of Christ, the Chilean artist said the wine was “inadvertently blessed by the priest while turning wine into the blood of Christ during the Eucharist.”’

 

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Jason Asselin Shock video shows ‘Jesus walking on water’ (2016)
‘Was it a ghost? A paranormal activity? Or could it possibly be an apparition of Jesus walking on water? These were the questions asked by netizens after a video clip was posted online showing a mysterious figure on a lake in Michigan, U.S.A. The filmmaker Jason Asselin caught the images while touring the area with country singer Kevin B Klein to make a new video. A couple of viewers couldn’t help but make biblical associations. “Looks like Jesus and Peter out for a stroll, to me,” one commented, while another added: “Looks more like Jesus walking on water. In the Bible passage Matthew 14:22-33, Jesus performed a miracle by walking on water. When Jesus first appeared to His disciples, they grew afraid and even suspected Him to be a ghost. But Jesus told them to “take courage” and to follow Him.”‘

 

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Xie Aige I’m the God of Junior Grade 2 (2014)
Bronze

 

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Doug Keyes The Holy Bible (1950) (1999)
‘Keyes is interested in the ways in which knowledge “stacks upon itself over time, leaving an impression or collective memory.” Attempting to recreate this ephemeral process, Keyes photographed pages in books from his own collection, as well as in texts suggested by his friends. He superimposed the resulting images, producing a version of each book condensed onto a single page. By deliberately manipulating the photographic process, Keyes examines how such commanding, canonical texts as the Christian bible permeate cultural consciousness over time.’

 

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Jim Lambie Vortex (Love Song) (2012)
full gloss paint, and hand-blown glass (Loredano Rosin sculpture)

 

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Ed Ruscha God Knows Where (2014)
‘A majestic mountain top dominates the background of Ed Ruscha’s God Knows Where, 2014, while the painting’s three eponymous words occupy the foreground, devised in crisp-white paint. Typical of Ruscha’s investigation of the relationship between images and words, the composition is an exceptional example of his use of mountainous peaks as visual backdrops, referencing both the naturalistic theme of snow and the Hollywood appropriation of snowscapes. Silhouetted against a matte sky, the large mountain at the heart of the image resembles the cut-out of a movie set, flattening the adventurous potential of what lies beyond. The text applied with a stencil in Ruscha’s emblematic font is, as the artist explains, “one of my own inventions, which I call ‘Boy Scout Utility Modern.’ If the telephone company was having a picnic and asked one of their employees to design a poster, this font is what he’d come up with. There are no curves to the letters – they’re all straight lines – and I’ve been using it for years”.’

 

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Matthieu Gafsou Only God Can Judge Me (2015)
‘Matthieu Gafsou spent more than a year immersed in the lives of drug addicts. His photographs reveal the night, the moral abandon, and an altered reality.’

 

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Berndnaut Smilde Nimbus (2012)
‘Berndnaut Smilde creates fluffy clouds in locations where nature never would place them. The Dutch artist’s sculptures last five seconds—10 seconds tops—before they disappear.’

 

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R. Crumb The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis (2010)
‘It seems nearly impossible to really look at each and every single one of the 207 drawings in the current exhibition: The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s book of Genesis, at David Zwirner, unless you have forty days and forty nights (or at least a few) to spend with it. The herculean feat of Crumb’s illustrating page for page, cell by cell, the entire Book of Genesis of the Old Testament of The King James Bible, cannot really be understood without looking at every cell of every page. The epic narrative unfolds beautifully in Crumb’s epic rendering of it. There are so many grand stories and lasting allegories in the text (Creation, The Fall, The Flood, The Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah) and a seemingly equal amount of tedious detail, particularly with the lineage from Adam through Noah to Abraham and on. God is, as they say, in the details, and Crumb ignores none.’

 

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Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung Make It Rain (2015)
‘Think about five fingers. You have one finger, it doesn’t do anything; five fingers, it’s a fist and you can punch something.’

 

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Tiona Nekkia McClodden Holy Land 16mm Film Test (2020)
‘Back in May I took a trip with my lady to this very strange run down amusement park ‘Holy Land’ in Waterbury, CT. It’s a Christian amusement park that has fallen into immense disrepair. I have been testing 16mm film stocks for an upcoming project and took my camera to film the park. When the film was developed and scanned it came back looking scary as all hell. I’ll never go back to that place again to say the least.’

 

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Hikari Shimoda Whereabouts of God (2019)
‘In her portrait series “Whereabouts of God”, featuring other-worldly children adorned with a Chernobyl necklace, children act as a blank canvas for what she describes as countless possibilities; where fantasy meets with reality, past meets future, life meets death, and a world that is yet to be reborn.’

 

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Unknown Untitled (?)

 

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Adam Chodzko The God Look-Alike Contest (1991-1992)
‘In response to advertisements placed by Adam Chodzko in Loot, a classified advertisements newspaper, which requested “..artist seeks people who think that they look like God…” over the course of a year (between early 1991 and 1992) images were offered to Chodzko by members of the public, who, after discussion with the participants, accepted everything submitted and terminated the project once twelve images had been received. The thirteenth ‘portrait’ (a self-portrait) is the advertisement itself.’

 

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Margaret Wall of Man (2009)
‘Here is my shrine that I made my freshman year at an all-girls boarding school. I called it my Wall of Man. I thought I was being deprived of my right to boys by my parents. I’m now a senior and more focused on my interests like photography, acting, literature, and (most important) David Bowie. What can I say?’

 

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Margaret Ernsberger When God Blinks (2013)
‘Margaret Ernsberger was bitten by the writing bug when she was in junior high school. She and her sister rented a second typewriter for a month to try their hand at it. Later their parents gave each one of them their own typewriter. Margaret got a second-hand Underwood, which she still has to this day, and which still still works!’

 

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Mike Kelley God (1984) & They See God (Stained Glass Mattress) (1990)
‘They See God (Stained Glass Mattress), expresses a manifestation of sexual desire veiled with an idealized representation of Catholicism; the stained glass window. The mattress is an obvious symbol of the corporeal act of sex but Mike Kelley cloaks it in panes of colorful fabric, recalling sacred stained glass windows but subverting this idea with a secular joyful color matrix. In this way Kelley subverts the Church’s doctrine of sex only for procreation and the repression of sex for pleasure by the use of its own symbol.’

 

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Adam Fuss The Space Between Garden and Eve (2011)
‘A daguerreotype is a photo depicted on a polished silver plate prepared with a saline solution. The results are mirror images with a holographic effect that play with our perceptions. The daguerreotypes show a mattress, either empty or covered with slithering snakes or a naked woman. The bed symbolises key moments in life (birth, copulation, death). The photos simultaneously seem to refer to the Biblical myth.’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!! He’s great. His novel ‘Autoportrait’ might be the best book of his, push come to shove, but they’re all fantastic. Getting to the juicy part is what it’s all about right now. Ha ha, love is getting so down to earth! Love would be the coolest, sweetest, cutest guy in the world if he wasn’t wearing bright orange bellbottom pants, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I think there was something missing from your second comment? ** Misanthrope, Hi. Oh, cool, I adore ‘What’s for Dinner?’ as you probably know. Schuyler’s also one of the greatest poets ever. That TC group is ridiculous to the point of seeming kind of scary like a mild mannered but rather odd serial killer. Very ultra-best of luck to your mom and you this afternoon. May you get reliable answers. ** T, Hi, T. Yeah, he’s a fantastic writer. I knew him a little bit. We share the same French publisher. He was a quite intense guy, but no one imagined he would kill himself. Huge shock. Not to mention doing it right after turning in the novel I spotlit. You could try his other novel ‘Autoportrait’ which is less disturbing and possibly even greater. Ah, so the music you’re making with your computer/tech is exactly the kind of music/sound I listen to constantly and love the most. So count me as even more intrigued to hear some someday when you’re ready to put it out here. Super happy to have helped trigger a work spurt. Keep it going. Mm, greatness did not even come close to my vicinity yesterday, but it was a … doable day, I guess I’ll say. Got some stuff done that needed to be done. I hope your next twenty-four are like an exciting countdown to … ? ** _Black_Acrylic, I just keep loving that ‘big cyberpunk boot’. Work it, man. All fingers crossed towards the late week discharge. ** wolf, Hey! Its great, right? I thought so too. Johnson is quite an interesting composer in general, even when his fingers are working it live. I don’t think I ever respond to the second person as being about me. So I guess I’m like you. But you know I read for style and technique, so when I see that ‘you’ I just immediately go, Ah, this writer is going for it and hoping I’ll go for it. Ha ha ha, Corvid-19! That’s a bit of genius right there. Big up, big! ** Shane Christmass, Cool, me too, duh. I’m well, or I seem to be. You too, I hope, I trust. ** John Newton, Hi. I’ve been meaning to watch ‘The Square’ for ages but still haven’t gotten around to it. I’ll prioritise it. I love Ray Johnson. I’m sure you’ve seen that amazing documentary about him, ‘How to Draw a Bunny’. Suicide is very, very difficult. I’ve lost a number of good friends to it, and of course George. His suicide still devastates me more than thirty years later. Thank you for the kind words. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Wow, you hadn’t seen a friend in four months? That’s tough. I did hear about your theaters reopening. Still no restart date for ours. Makes sense that the reopening would feel very daunting. Fear is ugly. I guess just try to be as pragmatic and logical about what’s actually dangerous and what’s a mental block as you can? I find Jon Rafman’s stuff cool and charming and fun a certain amount of the time. I don’t really have developed thoughts about it. It’s sort of one of those ‘what’s not to like’ things for me, I guess. ** Brian O’Connell, Que le soleil brille sur toi, Brian. No, the kind of groundwork right now is not unexciting, but, like I probably said, it’s like a laborious flirtation albeit with an all but guaranteed payoff. So, it’s that kind of exciting. The good thing about assuming your day will be a stressful nothing is that the relief when it isn’t at certain moments could be amazing? Mine … not expecting much, so if there are bonanzas in store, it won’t be hard to notice them. Happy one! ** Okay. God would like have some words and images with you today. See you afterwards aka tomorrow.